For Ianus and Runciman

Thank you for great information. I study late antique Egypt and early Islam, and the origin of islam.

There is no doubt that reading Wansbrough's great books: "Quranic studies" and "Sectarian Milieu" changed the way I do see the origin of Islam. I came to realize that to really understand early Islam one must be able to read the sources not only in Arabic but also in Syriac (this must be the most important language in the late antique period and the major source of foreign words in the Qur'an), Greek (and no I'm not fluent in Modern Greek), Coptic and Hebrew.

And yes the Greeks have the topos of "khilias" or "a thousand" (see Theophanes Chronographia) where the word khilias only means: many. Notice that also the Arabs use in their sources this topos of khilias and it is: alafaat (or thousands). So when you read that "alafaat" were let us say killed, the author of the source is really saying that many were killed. And in the old Greek sources the number 4000 must be read as plenty or too many.

Now as for the word dhimmi: we are told in the Muslim sources (sira/maghazi and tarikh) that Muhammad the Arabian war lord ghaza (invaded) the Oasis of Khaybar, that was populated by Jews, in 628 CE and as expected he looted the place and then established a "dhimma" or mithaq or 3Ahd (agreement) with the Jews where they will be ahl al-dhimma (the poeple of the agreement) and therefore in Arabic they became dhimmiees. They pay the jizya tax in exchange for "Muslim protection"! Sounds like mafia protection to me.

And as usual we are told that it is al-Khalifa 3Umar is the one who established the so called Mithaq 3Umar that spells out the obligations of non-Muslims residng in Muslim lands and of potential dhimmis residing outside dar al-Islam/salaam.

So my :Dhimmi no more" is a statement that we shall have no dhimma (agreement) with Muslims and islam will be defeated.

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Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".